There is something to be said about how film and the media can be used as an effective tool to touch on broad cultural ideals. On a related note, I will be attending a conference soon in Boston on social studies education and one of the seminars I will be going to is how to use SciFi movies in the classroom. Ideals like equality, fighting oppression and free speech are timeless and span many cultures, in Pakistan, the Burka Avenger is that area's media outlet to discuss key social topics to young people.

A modern day Batman/Superman, Burka Avenger, with great graphics and an in-depth plot. The television shows the Pakistanis children watch are the same type of shows that I watched growing up, and the shows that the modern day children of today’s youth are watching. The cross-cultural relationship seems so different, but at the roots it is the same. The kids in this show have friends, pets, enemies, a hero, a conflict; everything that an American television show would feature. Whether the kids are facing a bully, a school closure from a villain, or a life peril from another villain, there undercover school teacher is there ready and willing to save the day. Everybody needs a hero to look up to, so this show is great for the Pakistani youth.

I think this is wonderful. It also reemphasizes the reality that all children are born without preconceived notions of what is right, what is wrong, what is good, or what is evil. An American child might look at this and automatically think that the lady in the Burka is a "villain", due to American media and propaganda. I can't help but think of the backlash that would surround this cartoon if they ever tried to put it on American airwaves.

"This blog-a-thon submission comes from Joseph Kerski of the National Council of Geographic Education (2011 President). Joseph writes about why geography education matters and how it applies to each one of us."

Geography, is a subject where it takes all the skills from science, math, English, and social studies, and combines it into a in depth thinking class. It makes you find the problem, fix it and tell how and why you fixed it . For example, a crop is not growing in a dry area, then you try it in a wet area and it grows, now you have to find out why it grows in a wet area and not a dry area and explain why. It is good to start out early learning about the basics in the core classes then later in the more advance classes, to understand how to fix a problem.

Henderson Island is isolated and uninhabited—but its beaches are still covered in garbage.

Henderson Island (article or podcast) is about the most remote place you can visit without leaving the planet. It sits squarely in the middle of the South Pacific, 3,500 miles from New Zealand in one direction and another 3,500 miles from South America in the other. Henderson should be pristine. It is uninhabited. Tourists don’t go there. There’s no one around to drop any litter. The whole place was declared a World Heritage Site by the United Nations in 1988. The nearest settlement is 71 miles away, and has just 40 people on it. And yet, seafaring plastic has turned it into yet another of humanity’s scrapheaps.

"Many people posting it wrote that the photo was taken during the recent Nepal earthquakes, and that it depicts 'a brother protecting his sister.' Pretty heartwarming, right? It’s the exact sort of thing your aunt would share on Facebook. A perfectly clear, resonant message about survival and empathy and inequality, all that good stuff. There’s only one problem: That picture is fake."

This picture supposedly taken in Nepal of a brother protecting his younger sister due to recent earthquakes is, in fact, false. These kinds of photos portraying helpless people in foreign countries are often created to increase Instagram likes and retweets on twitter. Some times are real photos of someone or something going through tragedy, but often they are not.

The city has a lot of abandoned buildings, and to decide which ones should be demolished, the federal government and some major foundations started a massive, high-tech mapping project. The new mayor says that's just what he needs to improve the neighborhoods.

"The wealthiest country, which spends the most money on care for the sick, has far from the best health outcomes. Babies born in eastern Kentucky, along the Mississippi Delta and on Native American reservations in the Dakotas have the lowest life expectancies in the country. If current health trends continue, they aren’t expected to live much beyond an average of 70 years. Meanwhile, a baby born along the wealthy coast of California can be expected to live as long as 85 years, the authors found."

Conservatives say the state has a tax problem. Liberals say it has an inequality problem. What it really has is a city problem.

Connecticut is losing rich companies (and their tax revenues) while it’s adding low-wage workers, like personal-care aides and retail salespeople. Yet it remains a high-tax state. That’s a recipe for a budget crisis.

The rise and fall of Connecticut fits into the story of American cities. In the 1970s, American metros were suffering a terrible crime wave, and New York was dropping dead. That meant boom times for New York’s suburbs and southwestern Connecticut. But now many of those companies are moving back, lured by newly lower-crime cities and the hip urban neighborhoods where the most educated young workers increasingly want to live.

Finally, the hottest trend in American migration today is south, west, and cheap—that is, far away from Connecticut, both geographically and economically. Texas is growing rapidly, and seven of the 10 fastest-growing large metropolitan areas in 2016 were in the Carolinas and Florida. Of the 20 fastest-growing metros, none are in the northeast.

Flattened Water. Place of the Small Spring. Milky Water. At first glance, these phrases might look like just a jumble of words, but they’re actually something way cooler: the literal translation of three state names in the United States. Can you guess which ones? Expedia Canada put together this colorful map

The map above shows the countries that are due east and west from points along the coasts of North and South America. Many small island nations are (perhaps unfairly) excluded for ease of reading. Many thanks to Eric Odenheimer for sharing the map with Know More.

This article discusses various methods being used by officials to encourage water conservation by residents across California. Some media outlets are using the term "drought shaming" to describe the social media posts popping up where residents publicly point out others' wastefulness.

For my students: What do you think of "drought shaming"? Is it appropriate or inappropriate? Be sure to thoroughly explain your thinking.

Reuters photographer Carlos Barria recently spent time in Shanghai, China, the fastest-growing city in the world. A week ago, he took this amazing shot, recreating the same framing and perspective as a photograph taken in 1987, showing what a difference 26 years can make. The setting is Shanghai's financial district of Pudong, dominated by the Oriental Pearl Tower at left, and the new 125-story Shanghai Tower, China's tallest building and the world's second tallest skyscraper, at 632 meters (2,073 ft) high, scheduled to finish by the end of 2014. Shanghai, the largest city by population in the world, has been growing at a rate of about 10 percent a year the past 20 years, and now is home to 23.5 million people -- nearly double what it was back in 1987. This entry is focused on this single photo pairing, with several ways to compare the two.

It is amazing how quick a city can change in only 26 years. Since this picture was taken in 1987, the city's population has doubled, and is continuing to grow rapidly. Today, this city is one of the largest in the world and has magnificent skyscrapers, one of which is the second tallest in the world. It is obvious globalization hit this mega city very quickly, making it one of the most impressive cities in the world.

Buildings, skyscrapers and urbanization. Why not? This is how the world is and this is what attacks tourists. For Shanghai, they need to be up to par with all the other business and tech savvy countries and cities. This is how they are going to keep their technological business, by building what needs to be built.

nature, meaning, and function of boundaries - The most common boundaries are nation's borders. This video shows many landlocked or mostly surrounded states, that don't decisive as much freedom as states with many neighbors or open borders. These surrounded states value their borders and boundaries, because even if they are smaller or do not have as much freedom, they have their own state that they rule that is all theirs. The function of these borders as boundaries are to mark the edges of their state and to keep other states out.

"In 1992, the Baltimore Orioles opened their baseball season at a brand new stadium called Oriole Park at Camden Yards, right along the downtown harbor. The stadium was small and intimate, built with brick and iron trusses—a throwback to the classic ballparks from the early 20th century. It was popular right from the start.

These new Populous ballparks are small and old fashioned-looking but they also feature modern amenities—comfortable seats and fancy foods. And while designed to be different, they tend to follow a similar aesthetic format, featuring a lot red brick and green-painted iron. These new parks also feature asymmetrical playing fields, which are in many cases dictated by the surrounding cityscape."

This podcast is filled with important urban geographic issues: downtown revitalization, landscape aesthetics, sense of place, planning, public/private revitalization, etc. And to boot, this podcast uses America's pasttime to discuss these topics. I typically really enjoy the thoughtful exploration of the untold stories that make up our world found in the 99 Percent Invisible podcast.

This interactive map of population density in the United States also shows ethnic categories as defined by the U.S. census. Please explore this map at a variety of scales and in distinct locales.

Questions to Ponder: Is this a map of ethnic diversity patterns or is it a map of racial segregation? How come? Is there additional information that you would need to decide? This review of the map on Wired and Atlantic Cities described this map as a map depicting segregation: why would they say that?

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